Report: SLG market for justice, public safety IT set for modest gains

According to a new report, the state and local market for justice, public safety and homeland security technology will see an influx of $800 million in new spending over the next five years. Law enforcement officials looking to adopt both cutting-edge and back-office solutions ranging from predictive analytics to court case automation will push the market above $6 billion in 2015, market research firm, INPUT, said in an analysis Monday.

Factors coming from federal initiatives to standardize radio communications and data networks, as well as budgetary pressures and hiring freezes are likely to be the main drivers of IT investments, the report found. Solutions that can show cost-savings – be they predictive analytics or improved gavel-to-gavel court automation and parole systems – will see increased attention INPUT’s Chris Dixon said.

“By embracing cutting-edge tools such as predictive policing, local police and sheriff’s departments gain critical force multipliers,” Mr. Dixon, manager of state and local industry analysis, said in a statement. “Modern IT solutions not only improve officer performance in the field, but also compensate for hiring freezes and layoffs required by severe budget deficits that will persist through most of the forecast period.”

Federal initiatives like the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) will add nearly $2 billion to the total of 34.3 billion in IT spending by law enforcement, courts, and prison systems over the next five years.

“Law enforcement is one of the few areas in government striving to attain national standards for information sharing at the metro, state, and national levels,” said Dixon. “This in turn drives a slow-burn of activity to perpetually modernize and interconnect justice information systems with a variety of networks.”